Alyssa

“If madness is the mark of female singleness, the delirium is spreading. The percentage of married women across all races is decreasing.6 Despite this shift, society’s views on women and marriage have hardly changed since the Irish essayist George Bernard Shaw wrote, at the start of the twentieth century: “It is a woman’s business to get married as soon as possible, and a man’s to keep unmarried as long as possible.”7 Singleness and its associated freedoms are viewed as a man’s game. And a woman without a wedding band, or at the very least an adoring male partner to signal her worthiness, is to be viewed as warily as a steak without a USDA stamp—something must be rotten there.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

“Reprimanding women for, as Harvey says, “being the masters of ‘handling it,’” robs us of our accomplishments while convincing vulnerable men that their manhood is dependent on the weakness of women.13 This is particularly damaging in the Black community, which faces an even broader achievement gap between men and women than do other races. (For instance, women make up 66 percent of African Americans completing bachelor’s degrees and 71 percent of those completing master’s degrees.) Forcing Black women to justify their success to partners, who should be their biggest cheerleaders, is a troubling message for both Black women and men.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

“The final straw came when she finally unburdened herself to her mother, who had survived an abusive marriage to Carolyn’s father. “She said, ‘That sounds just like my marriage.’ That’s the day I knew I had to leave, because I could see years down the line, my daughter calling me crying about her marriage and me saying the same thing. I had to get out.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

“The freak-out over low Black marriage rates is connected to fears about the disappearance of Black families. And women, more so than men, are conditioned to be the keepers of family and culture. Black women viewed to be abdicating that responsibility are thought to be selling out in a way that men (who, when they date outside the race, get their own share of grief) are not. Hooking up with “the (White) man” is viewed as dancing with the Devil. And loving a non-Black man of color is reduced to perversion or fetish.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America